eShopperReviews 2022 Game Awards Day 5: Highest Honors

We’re finally down to it. What follows is the best of the best, the absolute cream of the crop of what 2022 had to offer.

Game of the Year: Bronze Award (Third Place)

Kirby and the Forgotten Land – After decades of sticking to the safe world of 2D games, Kirby finally makes a full transition into the world of 3D, and it is perhaps the smoothest transition to 3D that any classic 2D game franchise has ever had. This is of course not technically the first 3D Kirby game, but that doesn’t take away from what a major accomplishment this is.

And far more than simply being “Kirby, but in 3D”, Kirby and the Forgotten Land also has quite a lot of charm and creativity as well, with the new “mouthful mode” not only making Kirby somehow even cuter, but also adding some fun variety to the gameplay. Ultimately, Kirby and the Forgotten Land is something I think is pretty much a best-case scenario for what we could get with a 3D Kirby game, resulting in one of the best games in this long-running series.

Game of the Year: Silver Award (Second Place)

Bayonetta 3 – After announcing the game with little more than a logo, we heard nothing about Bayonetta 3 for years, with many fearing that the game had fallen into development hell. However, anyone who knows Bayonetta knows that she eats the forces of hell for breakfast and has demons at her beck and call, so all this time in development resulted in a game that’s on par with the other games in its series, if not even better… and since we’re talking about some of the very best Spectacle Fighters ever made, that means we’re talking about an Action game that few others can compare to.

Not only does this game bring the impressive setpiece moments and smooth, skillfully-crafted gameplay we’ve all become used to in this series, it has been given added depth with the new Demon Slave ability, challenging players to transition back and forth between Bayonetta kicking butt with her fists, feet and guns, and her kicking butt through massive summoned monsters she controls. The result is the most ambitious step forward the series has seen yet, and a truly peerless Action game.

Game of the Year: Runners-Up

It Takes Two – Few games epitomize a style of gameplay the way It Takes Two epitomizes co-op play. Not only does this game do co-op better than the majority of games on the market, but it simply wouldn’t work without its co-op. With sublime level design and boss design, wonderful characters, and consistently enjoyable and varied gameplay, this is a game so good that if you don’t have a friend to play with, you might want to make a friend just so you have someone to play this game with.

Neon White – One of this year’s most delightful surprises, you wouldn’t think that replaying the same level over and over again to try to shave a few milliseconds off of your time would be engaging, and yet here it’s absolutely thrilling, making perfectionists out of gamers speeding their way through obstacle courses until they can make it look like everything just came natural to them. But even just moving around in this game is a joyous experience, and finding new ways to cut corners and complete levels even faster is an absolute blast.

Pokemon Legends Arceus – After years of stagnancy, Pokemon Legends Arceus was a much-needed breath of fresh air to the Pokemon franchise. While its open-ended areas weren’t quite the Open-World experience Pokemon fans had long waited for, they nevertheless gave players an unprecedented feeling of freedom they’d never gotten in the series. However, even more surprising than this were all the ways this game streamlined the gameplay of the series and channeled it into making players feel like they were truly playing inside the Pokemon world. While this may or may not be a glimpse at the direction Pokemon may be headed in the future, it still gives us hope that the Pokemon franchise can still evolve into bigger and better things, much as its creatures do.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 – The Xenoblade Chronicles series has consistently been excellent, and in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 it has perhaps reached its apex. There are plenty of improvements to the gameplay, a wonderful world to explore, and perhaps most of all a gripping new story with an endearing group of main characters. If you’re an RPG fan on Nintendo Switch, this was the game to get in 2022.

Pokemon Scarlet / Pokemon Violet – Easily one of the most divisive games of 2022, Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet are an absolute mess, with terrible graphics and abysmally poor performance, among numerous other issues. It is absolutely clear that this game needed more time in development. And yet, despite its many, many, many flaws, this may well be the game that I personally enjoyed the most in 2022. Finally, we have seen the promise of an actual Open-World Pokemon game made real, and in many ways this is exactly what we all hoped it would be, truly giving us the freedom to explore a land full of Pokemon. To some, I’m sure this game belonged on their “worst of the year” lists, and I can’t fault them for that. However, for me a list of the best games of 2022 wouldn’t be complete without Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet.

Game of the Year

Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope – I liked the original Mario + Rabbids game, but I didn’t absolutely love it as many others seemed to. When the sequel was announced, I felt like it was a pretty safe bet that this game would be good, but didn’t expect my feelings to stray too far from how I felt about the original. I was wrong.

I think I could be forgiven my assumptions here, because where Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope could have easily rested on its laurels and given players “more of the same”, this game actually worked hard to innovate well beyond its predecessor in virtually every way. The strategy gameplay became both more nuanced and more accessible, allowing players to exploit its new free movement to devastated enemies. The new Sparks allowed players even greater malleability in outfitting their characters. The removal of the pointless requirement that Mario be in every party freed up players to create their perfect dream team. The new world design gave players a greater freedom to explore and discover. The more evolved characterization of the Rabbid-ized Mario characters actually made them unique and interesting in their own right. The new soundtrack lent the game a surprisingly epic tone that elevated the experience… in a year full of sequels that improved on prior games, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope truly stands out as a game that took something great and transformed it into something outstanding.

However, more than a few reviewers deliberately skipped over this game, and for good reason. By employee accounts, developer and publisher UbiSoft has failed to correct for the toxic culture of sexist and abusive treatment of its employees that we have all known about for years now. For many, they simply cannot in good conscience support a company that has knowingly allowed its own employees to suffer under such conditions.

I cannot judge those who have chosen to turn their back on this game for these reasons. You have to follow your own conscience, and if you cannot bear to know that your money has gone to a company that has caused such misery, no one should ever tell you that you are wrong for how you feel. However, my feelings on the matter are… well, a bit nuanced. The thing is, I know that countless employees worked on this game, poured their heart and soul into this game – you cannot create a game as good as this without it being a labor of love. And I know that the majority of those employees who worked on this game likely have nothing to do with the abusive actions of the management at UbiSoft, and may have in fact been the victims of said abuse. In my eyes, boycotting their work harms these employees just as much as it harms those responsible for the abuse.

As such, I’m taking a third option. Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope is my choice for Nintendo Switch Game of the Year for 2022, and deservedly so in my opinion. And as such, my review for the game will have this award appended to the end of the review for all to see… including everything I have written here. Whenever anyone is curious to see the game I deem to be the year’s best, they will get to see my celebration of everything wonderful about the game… and they will also be reminded of the disgusting, barbaric practices at the company that produced the game (be sure to check out the Game Company Bad Behavior Profile Page for UbiSoft for more details!). I won’t tell you to buy the game or boycott the game – that is a choice that only you can make for yourself. But I will make sure that no one forgets what UbiSoft has done.

Additional Commentary!

I feel like there are a few choices here that are most likely to have some readers surprised, confused, or possibly even upset.

I suspect the thing that may irk the most people is including Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet in the runners-up. I think I explain my reasons well enough in the text above.

I should note that I was really, really tempted to list Pokemon Legends Arceus and Pokemon Scarlet/Violet as a “tie” in the runners-up so I’d have one more space to add an additional game (likely Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge or Triangle Strategy), however I felt like doing so would go against the spirit of “only five runners-up” that I established for myself, and honestly this page simply wouldn’t feel complete without listing both Pokemon Legends Arceus and Pokemon Scarlet/Violet – both are fantastic, and both have their own unique strengths and weaknesses.

Some may wonder how Kirby and the Forgotten Land could beat out Neon White to the top 3 when Neon White was my pick for Best Platformer. In regards to that, there’s more to both games than the platforming. Kirby’s charm, exploration, puzzles, and boss encounters were all a big part of what made that game so great, and Neon White’s odd story elements are a large part of that game too… and between the two, I think I just liked Kirby better as an overall package, even if I think the platforming in Neon White is more enjoyable.

I suspect some may be shocked that I didn’t put Xenoblade Chronicles 3 in my top 3 games. To that, I can only say that as much as I found it to be a top-notch game, it was never close to being my pick for Game of the Year. There were far too many other games this year that I liked more. Honestly, it’s not even my number four.

As for my selection of Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope as Game of the Year, again I feel like I explain myself well enough above. Just to be clear, I did not name this my Game of the Year just to try and make a point about UbiSoft and its practices – it really really is the game I feel to be the absolute best game I played on Nintendo Switch in 2022. But, with this being the case, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to speak out about UbiSoft in a place where more people could see.

In previous years, my hardest choice when it comes to these game awards has usually been Best Music or Best Song, but this year, most of my hardest choices were determining runners-up. Probably the biggest exception was Game of the Year, where I went back and forth over whether to give it to Mario + Rabids: Sparks of Hope or Bayonetta 3. However, after going back and replaying both, my decision became clear – both games make some noteworthy improvements over their predecessors, but only Mario + Rabids: Sparks of Hope takes the huge gamble by reworking nearly everything about the game, a gamble that absolutely pays off. Bayonetta 3 is truly excellent at what it does best, but I feel like Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope is excellent at just about everything it does.

Anyway, I think that’s all I have to say here, but if I think I have anything else worth saying I may chime in again later. Barring that, I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on Nintendo Switch games in 2022!

That’s all for the eShopperReviews 2022 Game Awards! If you missed the other awards this week, be sure to check back at the Awards’ Start Page to see the other awards that have been handed out!

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